The Supreme Court has ruled that a delay in initiating legal action does not legitimise a continuing infringement of a patent, nor does it bar the proprietor from seeking an injunction against dishonest users.
A bench of Justices Sanjay Kumar and Alok Aradhe said that in cases of ongoing intellectual property violations, the urgency must be evaluated based on the continuing harm and the public interest in preventing deception.
“When imitation masquerades as innovation, it confuses consumers, corrupts the marketplace, and weakens faith in fair trade,” the bench observed. “Public interest becomes the moral axis on which urgency turns.”
Justice Alok Aradhe, writing for the bench, noted that the Commercial Courts Act, 2015 aims for the swift resolution of commercial disputes to promote investor confidence and ease of doing business. The Court pointed out that after the 2018 amendment, Section 12A introduced mandatory pre-institution mediation unless urgent interim relief is sought.
The ruling came in an appeal filed by a Danish company against the Himachal Pradesh High Court, which had dismissed its suit for patent infringement, citing a six-month delay in filing. The High Court held that the company failed to demonstrate genuine urgency since it had issued a cease-and-desist notice in December 2022 but only filed the case in June 2024.
The Supreme Court disagreed, stating that both the single and division benches of the High Court had misinterpreted the urgency test under Section 12A. “The courts examined the merits rather than the urgency evident from the plaint and supporting documents. This approach is contrary to established principles,” the bench held.
The Court emphasized that in cases of continuing infringement, the harm is recurring. “Each day of infringement aggravates the injury to the proprietor’s intellectual property and erodes its market standing. The urgency lies not in the age of the cause but in the persistence of the peril,” it ruled.
The matter involved Novenco ZerAx, a brand of high-efficiency industrial fans developed by the appellant after an investment of over €3.66 million (2007–2015). The company alleged that Xero Energy Engineering Solutions Pvt. Ltd., which once distributed its products in India, had set up Aeronaut Fans Industry Pvt. Ltd. to manufacture and sell identical fans under a deceptively similar name and design.
The Supreme Court restored the suit to the High Court’s file for fresh consideration in accordance with the law.
Case Details : S.L.P. (C) NO. 2753 OF 2025)
Citation : 2025 Local Law (SC) 1256
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